“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ---- Bonnie Jean Wamund
Love this quote. The act of service is just the starting point; passion is the key of to be truly customer centric.
There are three keys to accomplish this customer centric goal.
1) Ensure that there is executive commitment (we have heard this before—and rightfully so). This C-level commitment will only come when you have strong business case. In other words, you need to show a direct connection between customer loyalty and growing revenue. This needs to happen not just with the CEO but with the CFO. And, with the CFO, it can not be a covert commitment. The CFO needs to be a vocal, exuberant supporter of the program. This is important because once you start down the path to being a customer-centric organization; you cannot turn back when the next quarter’s revenue forecast looks soft.
2) Thoughtful processes need to be in place to ensure success. That is, all customer touch points needs to be put into a process map. This map will allows you to define the best interaction (wow factor) for each touch point. Equally important to the process map is a system/portal to communicate the results. You always need a way to see if you are winning or losing.
3) Passion and tireless resolve will drive change into the organization. Obviously, driving change is a well documented discipline in its own right. However, from a customer service standpoint, this change starts at the frontline. If customer loyalty is truly going to be adopted, senior executives need to really, really understand the customer issues. When executives uncover these issues, it is quickly determined that these “customer service” issues are normally systemic organization issues that need to be solved in marketing, IT, finance or some other department. Until these problems are corrected, we are hindering our front line colleagues’ ability to impact how they “feel” about our service.
